God helps those who help themselves?

The title of this blog post is one of those famous Bible quotes that's not really in the Bible.  But could it be?  When does God help lazy people in the Bible?  There's no good quote, but the theme isn't far fetched.  Let's look at some famous people God helped (or carried out His plan through).  Pay close attention to the vocabulary used.

• Noah - Genesis 6:14-15 (make)
• Abram - Genesis 12:1 (go)
• Moses - Exodus 3:10 (go, bring)
• Joshua - Joshua 1:6 (lead)
• Gideon - Judges 6:14 (go)

And it wasn't even limited to the Old Testament:

• Acts 5:18-20 (go)
• Acts 12:7-8 (follow)
• Romans 2:6 (do)
• 1 Timothy 6:18 (deeds)
• James 3:13 (deeds)

When we read the words, we see that God commanded people to do work.  These people are famous for God helping them but it's only our modern, lazy, post scientific revolution paradigm that makes us think God will take care of us so that we will have an easier life.  That's what garage door openers and self closing trunks are for, but isn't why God intervenes in the world.  He intervenes to carry out His plan, which like Noah and the rest, involves a lot of hard work.  While it's tempting to give Gideon a hard time for asking for the wet fleece and the dry fleece, he asked for those demonstrations out of fear, not laziness.

Not everyone who doesn't act is lazy.  Some of us honestly believe that praying hard and often is good enough.  Now I get it that Jesus was big on prayer.  But the only time Jesus ever came close to saying "just pray" was in a specific case of direct, toe to toe spiritual warfare.  This example was so specific it's dangerous to ever use this as an excuse that we should ever "just pray".  Certainly prayer is important, and just so you don't think I'm anti-prayer or that I think nothing of prayer, here are some of Jesus's positions:

• Matthew 6:5-13
• Mark 1:35
• Mark 9:29
• Luke 5:16
• Luke 6:12

I'm just so tired of hearing people (over my lifetime) saying something like "we just need to pray."  Granted, that's important, and granted when we are out of options then maybe all we can do is pray.  But we are on the verge of sinning if we have the capacity to act and yet we choose only to pray.  As if to ask God to step in and do our job for us.  If you are a parent, and you just asked your teenager to wash their own dinner plate off, and they responded "mom/dad, I sure wish that you would wash this plate so I can watch TV", how well do you think you'd like hearing that, and do you think you'd actually grant your teenagers request?  Not many of us would.  If you're going to pray, fine, but don't kid yourself that praying gets you out of working.  Prayer is the "air cover," or the administrative overhead, to the actual work.

We so want life to be black and white but it's more complicated than that.  It's important to pray.  Just like it's important to have a Biblical worldview.  (Remember, Biblical worldview only comes from actually reading your Bible and remembering what it says, then taking it seriously.)  But neither (nor even both of these together) are enough.  We must do good work too.

• James 2:14-26
• Romans 12:9-13
• Matthew 7:21

Thomas Edison (the guy who invented both the light bulb and the municipal power grid) said something cool.  "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." What opportunities does God have planned for us today?